1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to communications headsets.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional communications headsets include acoustic speakers for directing sound waves generated by a radio receiver or other circuitry into a wearer's ear canal and the auditory mechanism responsible for hearing. In the headset industry, it is also known to use bone vibrating transducers mounted in housings incorporated into a headset to transmit sound waves generated by a radio receiver through the temporal bones or other cranial bones of a wearer directly to the inner ear cochlea, allowing sounds to bypass the eardrum. See for example, U.S. Design Pat. No. D550656. Headsets incorporating bone vibrating transducers are known to be particularly useful in applications in which the wearer wants to leave the auditory canal of the ear unoccluded to hear sounds in the ambient environment. Bone vibrating transducer headsets are also advantageous in that they allow the wearer to engage and disengage various forms of hearing protection while having no negative impact on the wearer's ability to hear radio transmissions.
There remains a need for improved communications headsets for military and law enforcement tactical applications.